


Lionheart

by truethingsproved



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Character Death Fix, Fix-It, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-18
Updated: 2014-03-18
Packaged: 2018-01-16 06:13:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1335007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/truethingsproved/pseuds/truethingsproved
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Allison is surprised at the sound of her own voice. Everything is white: white tile floor, white walls, white columns, and when she looks up all she can see is white. She stands, looking around, and shivers. “That’s not how it was supposed to happen,” she says again, and her voice cracks. “I never got to be selfish. I never got to be angry. Everything was for someone else and I—that’s not how it was supposed to happen!”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lionheart

"That’s not how it was supposed to happen."

Allison is surprised at the sound of her own voice. Everything is white: white tile floor, white walls, white columns, and when she looks up all she can see is white. She stands, looking around, and shivers. “That’s not how it was supposed to happen,” she says again, and her voice cracks. “I never got to be selfish. I never got to be angry. Everything was for someone else and I—that’s  _not_  how it was supposed to happen!”

There’s no one there to hear her confess this. She  _is_  angry, and selfish, and she wants to stand up and walk out of Scott’s arms. Nothing about this is right, or perfect.

Sitting on her desk is a fat acceptance letter from a college in Seattle, right next to the picture of her with Lydia when Chris brought them out to pick out Allison’s new car. Lydia applied there, too. They were going to be roommates, living in Kate’s old apartment. One of Isaac’s shirts is crumpled up on her bed, half shoved under her pillow. She has five more silver arrowheads. She’s not finished yet.

"I didn’t get the chance to be  _Allison,_ " she practically screams. The sound doesn’t echo back to her, and her throat is raw and burns. "I never went to prom! I never tried to do a keg stand! I never roomed with Lydia at college! I never fell in love for the second time, I never called Isaac my boyfriend, I never went to London to see Jackson, I never got to pick out paint samples for the apartment, I never got to pick a major!

"I’ve been Chris’ daughter and Scott’s girlfriend and Kate’s niece and Gerard’s granddaughter but I haven’t gotten a chance to really be  _Allison_  yet and it’s not fair!

"I  _died_  for them! My last breaths were for them! When does it get to be about me? When do I get  _my_  turn?”

The white room swallows the sound and Allison sinks to her knees and slams her palms against the floor, letting out a harsh scream. She feels like she’s been scrubbed raw. There are shoes she hasn’t tried on yet. There are books she hasn’t read yet. There are places she hasn’t seen and cameras she hasn’t touched and songs she hasn’t heard and the knowledge of that fills her to burst.

She screams until she’s spent, and then she screams more, and more, and more, and when she finally stops screaming, covering her face with her hands and leaning forward until her head is pressed to the ground, she thinks,  _now, I’m going to fade until I’m nothing._

"No, you’re not."

Looking up with surprise, she could scream again when she sees Jennifer Blake kneeling in front of her, but instead she simply stares. Gently, Jennifer brings two fingers to the underside of her chin, tipping her face up.

"You’re not faded just yet."

———

Her breathing is shallow in Scott’s arms and he’s doing everything he can to keep her breathing at all. Isaac has called for an ambulance and is shaking, covering his face and trembling while Kira gathers him close to her chest, rocking him back and forth and keeping him safe, and Noshiko is keeping Chris held back.

"He’s doing everything he can, but you cannot crowd him," she says, her eyes filled with the pain of another parent. Chris is simply empty. Something inside of him is silent.

They all look up in surprise when Lydia starts to scream from inside Eichen House.

But this isn’t the scream they’re used to hearing. It’s a scream unlike anything they’ve ever heard, the kind of scream that the earth itself echoes. Everything around them quakes and trembles and Scott fears that the walls will come crashing down around Lydia.

Maybe it’s just his imagination, but Allison’s breathing is just a little bit less labored. Maybe it’s just his imagination, but with every breath that Allison takes, cradled against his chest, Lydia grows louder, the earth trembles deeper, and Kira—

—Kira is  _glowing._

But the ambulance arrives and there are paramedics coming to take Allison and strap her to a gurney, to help Scott stop the bleeding and to pump air into her lungs and blood into her veins, and Lydia doesn’t stop screaming, and Kira doesn’t stop glowing, and when Noshiko releases Chris, he holds his hands out, one for Scott, one for Isaac.

"She shouldn’t be alone," he says, his voice shaking, and Noshiko nods, laying a hand on Kira’s shoulder.

Scott doesn’t know what’s happening or why but he’s in the ambulance with them, speeding towards the hospital, one hand tight in Isaac’s, and Lydia doesn’t stop screaming.

He wonders if the paramedics can hear her, and as he watches them working to keep Allison alive, he doesn’t think they can, but that doesn’t stop Lydia. She screams and screams and screams.

———-

When Jennifer offers Allison her hand, the younger woman takes it, pulling herself up. “What are you doing here?” she asks, and Jennifer’s smile is wry.

"I think the more important question is why you’re here, Allison." She sounds like a teacher and for a moment, Allison wonders what life would have been like for her if she hadn’t been hurt so badly.

"I’m dead," Allison answers, and her voice is hollow, but Jennifer just shakes her head. They keep hold of one another’s hands and they walk together through the long white room, looking straight ahead.

"You’re eighteen," Jennifer tells her. "You’re eighteen and getting ready to go to college. You’re kissing boys you think you shouldn’t kiss. You shouldn’t be here." She takes in a deep breath and Allison sneaks a look at her; in a way, they almost look alike. In another universe, maybe they were sisters.

Allison tries to remember that Jennifer murdered people, innocent people, good people, but right now they are alone in an endless white room and maybe now Allison is not afraid of dying but she is still afraid of being alone.

"I’m here because I lived, and died, and I did terrible things, and I hurt people, and I  _lived._  I’m here because death and I were bedfellows long before they killed me. But I lived, Allison.” Jennifer’s hand is softer than Allison would have imagined. “When you were nine years old, you crawled into your father’s lap even though you thought you were too old to do that, and you wept, because you didn’t dare find your mother and tell her that you’d finished the Narnia books, and Susan Pevensie was so alone you hurt for her. And you cried, and you cried, because you thought of her without her family, and you said that it wasn’t fair, that Susan didn’t deserve to be so alone.”

"You’re not really here," Allison asks, understanding, "are you? That’s how you know this. I just imagined you here?"

Jennifer shrugs, and the smile she offers Allison is one that Allison knows she’s worn herself, the kind of smile that comes when seeing a bird with broken wings. “I don’t know.”

"But if you’re not here, then this isn’t real. There’s no such thing as—as ghosts and the afterlife."

Allison knows what Jennifer is going to say before she says it, but her eyes fill with tears all the same.

"There’s no such thing as werewolves."

———

Lydia isn’t entirely sure why she’s screaming, just that she knows that she must. If she stops screaming, she thinks, the world will come and crash down around them again. She feels Kira and Noshiko there before she sees them, but even when she does look at them, she doesn’t fall silent.

She shifts back so that Noshiko can gather Stiles into her grasp and lift him as easily as she would a child, carrying him away, and she isn’t startled when she feels Kira lay her hands on her shoulders. 

"Don’t stop," Kira says softly, kneeling down in front of Lydia, hands still on Lydia’s shoulder. She glows like the summer sun setting, like fireflies in the crisp last days before autumn, like the heart of something greater than any of them could imagine. And Lydia grabs for her, wraps her fingers around Kira’s arms to keep herself steady, and she doesn’t have to stop for breath and she doesn’t think of anything but Allison.

The lilt of Allison’s voice when she just wakes up to answer the phone, and the way she never tells Lydia to call back later. The smell of her shampoo—raspberries and vanilla—left behind on Lydia’s pillows whenever Allison spends the night. The curve of Allison’s neck when she bowed her head with a shy smile, the calluses on her fingertips brushing against Lydia’s palm. The taste of lip gloss, sweet and almost delicate, left behind on shared water bottles and coffee cups.

Kira thinks of Allison too, of the firm back pressed against hers as they stood facing three werewolves twice their size, the ease with which Allison caught her sword, the way that Allison stood with her afterward and taught her how to hold a crossbow, one hand on her shoulder, whispering that she needed to ease her tension.

Leaning her forehead against Lydia’s, Kira simply breathes, in and out, in and out, and every beat of their hearts is one and the same.

_Al-li-son. Al-li-son._

———

"You are becoming Susan Pevensie," Jennifer explains. The room never changes; they never get any closer to those white walls, and when Allison tips her head back, she still can’t see the ceiling, just that endless white. "You have been sidelined, tossed away like a character your author doesn’t understand anymore. Blamed for growing up and moving on and kissing the wrong boys and wearing lipsticks and nylons. You have been left to drown while everyone around you is given a raft."

"Susan deserved better." Allison’s voice is filled with the same righteous anger she’d felt nearly ten years before, turning those pages for the first time, and she looks at Jennifer with almost helpless indignation.

In response, Jennifer reaches up and tucks a strand of Allison’s hair back. “I know,” she says. “But so do you. What would you have had Susan do?”

Allison pauses, clears her throat, considers. “I would have brought her back to Narnia,” she says after a moment. “I would have given her the kingdom and the crown and I—I would have given her a pair of wings, so she could fly out to meet Aslan and stand her ground. I would have given her a chance to stand up to him without being pushed down.” Her voice grows smaller for a moment. “And if I couldn’t do that, then I would have held her hand at her family’s funeral.”

Jennifer’s laugh isn’t one of mirth but one of appreciation. “She would have been lucky to have you.”

"Is this all there is?" Allison asks after a moment’s silence. "Do we just spend the rest of eternity walking to nowhere?"

"No." Jennifer looks almost sad as she says this, but she’s at peace, that much is clear. "No. You can walk with me," she says, "and we can wait until we find a door, and I can close the door behind you and wish you farewell. I don’t know what’s on the other side of it—maybe it’s Narnia. Maybe it’s your Queen Susan. If you don’t want that, you can turn around, and walk away from me, and walk alone."

Allison’s lips tremble and she swallows hard. “I’m afraid,” she confesses softly.

"I know, little lionheart, but you need to be brave."

"I don’t feel very brave. I just feel afraid."

"Bravery doesn’t mean that you aren’t afraid," Jennifer explains. She would have made a good teacher. "Bravery means that you go on anyway."

Allison nods, trying to consider this. “Will I see you again?”

"I don’t know."

"Will it hurt?"

"I don’t know."

She nods again, and she lifts Jennifer’s hands to press her lips to her knuckles, and when she releases them she stands on her toes to press a kiss to her cheeks, her forehead, the tip of her nose, and when her lips touch torn and ruined flesh she doesn’t flinch back.

"If you see Erica and Boyd," she says softly, "tell them that I’m sorry. If you see my mother, or Kate, please, tell them I forgive them. I can’t go through that door."

"No?" Jennifer asks, and the corners of her lips curl up in a smile. She looks like the Jennifer Blake that Allison knew, but covered in scars and bruises and she is more beautiful now, wearing that smile, than she has ever been.

Allison shrugs. “I can’t bring Susan back,” she answers, “but I can try to give myself a better ending.” She turns away from Jennifer and closes her eyes for only a moment, and when she opens them

she starts to  _run._

She could run for a thousand years and never tire, never fade; she doesn’t know how far she’s gone but she doesn’t dare look back in case she loses her nerve. If she looks carefully she can see it, a gentle glow at the end of this impossibly long white room, and even though she can’t hear the thud of her own feet hitting the ground she hears it, a humming at first that grows louder with every step she takes, guiding her home.

———

Just as Lydia knew she needed to scream, she knows when it’s time for her to stop, and the glowing light around Kira fades and they collapse into one another, shaking in each other’s arms, holding one another tightly as if to keep the other from flying apart.

When they can stand again they do and, hands tightly clasped together, they slowly make their way out of Eichen House, through the terrible, winding alleys and halls, until they stand at the entrance, where Noshiko is holding Stiles, still unconscious, to her chest.

"Is it done?" Noshiko asks, and Kira nods, holding Lydia’s hand even tighter.

"I think she found her way home."

Lydia’s voice is barely more than a whisper when she breathes, “Does that mean she’s alive?”

"I don’t know." Noshiko is wise, wiser than anyone they’ve ever met, but there are things even the wisest can’t know for sure. "Wherever she is, she is at peace."

They descend the steps carefully, and there is no sound but the wind and their breath in the night air.

———

Allison knows that she isn’t dead because of the pain. At least, she hopes she isn’t dead. If death includes feeling pain like this, then there really isn’t any hope.

She knows, as she starts choking and trying to pull whatever’s been put down her throat  _out,_  that she’s fighting the tubes that have been inserted to keep her breathing, that the sharp pain in the back of her hand is from an IV, that the dull humming and whirring isn’t the same hum she heard before, nor is the harsh light the same glow, but it does mean she’s alive.

There are hands now, hands on her shoulders and holding her down while the tube is pulled out from her throat, and she hears disjointed voices saying her name and then, right beside her ear, “Allison.  _Allison._  Can you hear me?”

Isaac’s voice is soft and quiet and so, so gentle. He doesn’t push. He doesn’t demand. He doesn’t expect. He only asks. She opens her eyes slowly, so slowly that she can barely feel herself moving, and turns to look at him. He’s crouched at the left side of her bed, watching her carefully. The hands holding her down are Scott’s.

"She’s awake," Scott says, and there is unbridled joy in his voice. "She’s  _alive.”_

The hissed inhalation is her father, she knows, as is the tearful oath that follows, and both Isaac and Scott step back to let him rush to her side and sit on her bed and he’s crying, he’s crying so hard, and all she wants is to kiss every last tear and promise him that she’s home.

At the foot of her bed stand Kira and Lydia, with Noshiko just behind them, and she can see Stiles slumped in a chair tucked away in a corner, looking very pale and very tired but still alive.

There is a doctor standing in her room and watching her, shuffling instruments around and taking notes and asking her questions, but she ignores him.

"I’m going to go to Seattle," she rasps, and it hurts to speak and the pain in her abdomen is excruciating, but she’s still here. "I’m going to live in Kate’s apartment with Lydia, and I’m going to send Melissa McCall flowers on Mother’s Day. I’m going to send you postcards in French," she adds, turning to look at Isaac, "so you’ll have to learn."

She gropes along the side of her bed for a hand and finds Scott waiting for her, taking her hand and lacing his fingers into hers.

"I’m going to write you emails every day."

She looks back at her father and he nods, weeping still, as she speaks.

"I’m going to be Allison."

**Author's Note:**

> because to be quite honest, allison's ending was shit. her ending was shit, and she was too good for beacon hills from the moment she set foot there. she deserved better. she deserved better, and we, as her fans, deserved better.
> 
> crystal reed did a beautiful and incredible job and i have nothing but respect for her, but man, screw jeff davis. stop killing teenage girls off when you don't know what to do with them anymore. see also: paige, heather. i hope that crystal reed has an incredible career after this and that she knows that she made allison argent into the beautiful, incredible lionheart who inspired so many girls to be brave and strong.
> 
> so, here's the ending we should have gotten. where allison gets to go to prom with isaac even though she's still in a wheelchair after that injury and go away to college with lydia. where she gets to hold scott's hand and tell him and kira that she's happy that they found each other. where she gets to lay flowers on boyd's and erica's graves and remember them, and where she gets to finish miss blake's reading list.
> 
> come say hi over tumblr (susanspevensie) if you've got any feedback; i appreciate it all. thank you to natalie and perry and jeri and jac for reading this as i wrote it, and a massive thank you to everyone who messaged me last night to ask if i was okay.
> 
> and the biggest thank you to crystal reed, and to allison argent. beacon hills won't shine without you.


End file.
